Dyspeptic retired Marine wife/tech wench attempts to enlighten the great unwashed of the blogosphere while dodging snarky commentary from the local knavery.

July 12, 2008

Important New Study

Your federal tax dollars at work, sheeple:

A new study suggests that even moderate drinkers who turn abstinent may develop depression. Researchers found that mice who drank alcohol voluntarily for 28 days exhibited depression-like behavior 2 weeks after they stopped imbibing.

The negative mood was linked to a reduction in neuron production in the brain, which can also cause diminished cognitive abilities.

So it's official: beer makes us happy. The Mice have spoken.

What the Editorial Staff want to know is, who in the helk thinks up these studies? And more importantly, why are we not included?

Via Men's Health, which has more on happiness. We tend to agree: happiness, like love, is a decision.

Posted by Cassandra at July 12, 2008 11:13 AM

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Seriously, I've been going through withdrawal symptoms. I didn't drink much the year the Unit was gone unless I was out with other people.

When he got back I loosened up, which was OK, but I have put on a few pounds. That is OK - I had lost too much weight and Carrie was teasing me about being too skinny :p So I am OK with where I am now - my clothes still fit.

My husband came back from Baghdad looking like some kind of refugee too. The boys were worried about him. He has filled out now and looks a helluva lot better. Kinda pitiful :p

But we don't want to start losing our girlish figures so we decided to cut back during the week.

George Will recently had a column about how people who drank beer during the middle ages were better able to survive plagues by avoiding diseases spread by dirty water. Dieing of cirrosis in your forties is better than dieing of disentary in your twenties. This allowed Europe to survive the plague.

"Before Noah, men having only water to drink, could not find the truth. Accordingly...they became abominably wicked, and they were justly exterminated by the water they loved to drink. This good man, Noah, having seen that all his contemporaries had perished by this unpleasant drink, took a dislike to it; and God, to relieve his dryness, created the vine and revealed to him the art of making le vin. By the aid of this liquid he unveiled more and more truth."

and

"Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy."

- Benjamin Franklin

Only reinforces my belief that I would have greatly enjoyed Ben's company... and on occasion, W.C. Fields too, come to think of it... =8^}

I wonder if that is the same as the commercial ACAI product/powder I use.

A few puffs of this ACAI energy thingie into a cap, add some water, and presto! Instant fruit punch that will keep me awake without that "preternatural focus" which comes when you drink coffee late at night in large doses.

Then again, I have a high metabolism, so coffee can't easily addict me unless I already have built up a huge tolerance to it, and I never plan to.

Why do you need more coffee if that is only going to make the effects less potent?

But due to regulations and stuff, Krating Daeng has additional ingredients that Red Bull doesn't. I don't know this for a fact, mind you, but having drunk both, the Thai stuff does seem a whole lot more potent.

How did they know that the mice were drinking voluntarily? I mean, did they have 3 choices, beer, water and apple and green pepper made in the juicer, and they chose beer? And what of peer pressure -- did the mice drink from common watering holes? I'd bet the "cool" mice made fun of the other mice until they drank the beer "voluntarily." And who wouldn't be depressed after the beer was gone. Now that they had no means of proving that they were cool, the nerdy mice were mocked relentlessly by the cool mice.

Quite simple, really - I don't. My work is sandwiched in between the time I read (and comment on) the blogs, as well as ogling the women, going for toilet breaks... and it helps that I don't consider it work, most of the time. :)

But for a more serious answer? It helps to unblock the pipes at night and in the morning. And cold showers.

Ooh, ooh, did I mention a Vietnamese girl has joined my team? Sitting right opposite me and married, sigh, but let me see if I can get a pic. Smoking! Or at least I think so. I've always had a thing for girls with glasses, and the ponytail...

Double sigh. I still think of myself as a horny teenager. Even though I'm a decade past those salad days. Am I the only one stuck in this particular time warp?

The office environment does not help at all. Maybe it's just here, but while men have an unvarying dress code (dress shirt, trousers, noose/tie), women do not. And oh boy, skirts that go well above the knee... and let's not forget the going night clubbing, and the drink till we're sloshed, it's almost like working at Google.